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Monthly Archives: March 2015

by his contrivance, the most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study. GULLIVER’S TRAVELS. CHAPTER V: The Author permitted to see the Grand Academy of Lagado. By Jonathan Swift, 1726.

The most recent version was created by the group of MIT scientists 10 years ago:

Three computer science Ph.D. students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—Jeremy Stribling, Max Krohn, and Dan Aguayo — created a program to generate nonsensical computer science research papers … [The program] SCIgen uses a “context-free grammar” to create word salad that looks like reasonable text from a distance but is easily spotted as nonsense by a human reader … The goal…was “to expose the lack of peer review at low-quality conferences that essentially scam researchers with publication and conference fees” … [SCIgen] found users across the globe, and … automatically generated creations were being accepted by scientific conferences and published in purportedly peer-reviewed journals…

[As a result of this successful scientific experiment] Academic publisher Springer this week is releasing SciDetect, an open-source program to automatically detect automatically generated papers [but still wasn’t able to find the proper tool to detect “nonsensical computer science research papers that were manually generated and continue to publish them].
–Hoax-detecting software spots fake papers By John Bohannon

TheStreet’s Scott Gamm sat down with Medved at the Israeli Capital Markets Conference in New York and asked him a couple of questions:

-What about the startups of Israel? Should Silicon Valley be worried?

No, Silicon Valley shouldn’t be worried of nobody, but the rest of the world should, because we are the #2.

– How do you compete? Why should I go to Israel to start my company?

Next wave …[that challenge the world] … is the hard technology problems. Internet of things will be driven by Israel ans big data will be driven by Israel. Amazon just bought Israel chip company for $400 millions, so they would integrate that technology to resolve the issues related to their data services. Israel is good for hard technology problems… Average exit price for Israel startups is going up to $200 mlms from $30 millions only 6 years ago. Read more: http://www.thestreet.com/video/13093068/silicon-valley-shouldnt-be-worried-about-israels-rising-tech-scene.html

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How does Israel, a small country with roughly 8 million people, produce more tech startups and receive more venture capital per capita than any nation in the world? Why does a country with few natural resources have more companies listed on the NASDAQ than Europe, Japan, Korea, India and China combined? Read more:http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/20/from-the-8200-to-silicon-valley/

1957: Sputnik has launched ARPA
President Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the need for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) after the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik.

1957 – October 4th – the USSR launches Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite:
1958 – February 7th – In response to the launch of Sputnik, the US Department of Defense issues directive 5105.15 establishing the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).

The organization united some of America’s most brilliant people, who developed the United States’ first successful satellite in 18 months. Several years later ARPA began to focus on computer networking and communications technology.

In 1962, Dr. J.C.R. Licklider was chosen to head ARPA’s research in improving the military’s use of computer technology. Licklider was a visionary who sought to make the government’s use of computers more interactive. To quickly expand technology, Licklider saw the need to move ARPA’s contracts from the private sector to universities and laid the foundations for what would become the ARPANET.

Less than a decade ago, Wall Street firms were the premier destination for young college graduates and talented executives… [and] Wall Street is certainly not hurting for talent [yet]… Last summer, Morgan Stanley had 90,000 applicants for roughly 1,000 entry-level summer jobs… [but the general trend was sufficiently changed –] Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a top source of young recruits, only 10 percent of undergraduates went into finance in 2014, compared with the 31 percent who took jobs on Wall Street in 2006 … Software companies, meanwhile, hired 28 percent of M.I.T. graduates in 2014, compared with 10 percent in 2006… At Harvard Business School, for example, the percentage of graduates going into finance dropped to 33 percent last year from 42 percent in 2006, while the numbers going into technology jumped to 17 percent from 7 percent.
– Wall St. Stars Join Silicon Valley Gold Rush By Nathaniel Popper and Conor Dougherty, New York Times. March 24, 2015

It’d easy to understand why Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer of the venerable investment bank Morgan Stanley and one of the most powerful women on Wall Street, would want to head west to become C.F.O. of Google… there is some solid evidence that Ms. Porat isn’t the only person deciding that technology offers a more compelling opportunity than banking… In 2008, 45 percent of M.B.A. recipients there went into financial services, versus 7 percent into technology…in 2014, it was 33 percent finance versus 17 percent technology…the economists Stephen G. Cecchetti of Brandeis University and Enisse Kharroubi of the Bank for International Settlements have found clear evidence that an unusually large financial sector actually reduces the growth rate of an economy, rather than enhances it… Read more:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/upshot/why-wall-streeters-defecting-to-silicon-valley-is-good-news-for-the-economy.html?smid=tw-nytimes&abt=0002&abg=0

Morgan Stanley CFO Ruth Porat is off to manage Google’s finances, and her new job has become a useful data point in the debate over the changes in Silicon Valley—but is it good news or bad?… if a too-large financial sector is bad news for the economy, the financialization of its most dynamic and innovative industry isn’t a necessarily a step forward either… Americans are studying technical fields or starting new firms would be positive signs when it comes to the tech sector. News that bankers are moving in for the profit-taking doesn’t seem like a leading indicator of innovation. Read more: http://qz.com/369233/wall-streets-infiltration-of-silicon-valley-is-a-bad-sign-for-the-us-economy/

Since Mr. Obama took office, employees of [Google] have visited the White House for meetings with senior officials about 230 times, or an average of roughly once a week… On Nov. 6, 2012, the night of Mr. Obama’s re-election, Mr. Schmidt was personally overseeing a voter-turnout software system for Mr. Obama. A few weeks later, Ms. Shelton and a senior antitrust lawyer at Google went to the White House to meet with one of Mr. Obama’s technology advisers. By the end of the month, the FTC had decided not to file an antitrust lawsuit against the company, according to the agency’s internal emails… FTC officials and Google worked to bring the investigation to a close, emails show. Messrs. Drummond and Leibowitz exchanged emails and phone calls over the year-end holidays while on family vacations and on New Year’s Eve. “At your service to close this out,” Mr. Drummond wrote to the FTC chairman on Dec. 17, 2012.

Within 24 hours of Apple launching its platform for health research this month, tens of thousands of iPhone users had signed up to take part in five inaugural studies involving some of the US’s most respected medical institutions… Apple’s ResearchKit is the latest example of the technology industry’s deepening interest in healthcare as mobile devices open new ways of measuring wellbeing. Apps ranging from step-counters and heart-rate meters to alcohol breathalyser kits and ovulation monitors already provide individuals with a wealth of personal health information. ResearchKit demonstrates the potential for this data to be aggregated in ways that could shed light on trends across wider population groups… Apple is not alone. Google has invested in two companies that aim to do their own research on the back of the proliferation of medical data … Read more: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/064a4a20-ce63-11e4-86fc-00144feab7de.html

Apple Watch measures all the ways you move, such as walking the dog, taking the stairs, or playing with your kids. It even keeps track of when you stand up, and encourages you to keep moving. Because it all counts. And it all adds up… Read more: https://www.apple.com/watch/health-and-fitness/

Tests designed with ResearchKit use the iPhone’s sensors to record data. The touch screen can feel people tapping in rhythm to detect inconsistencies that may signal a disease. The accelerometer can compare the gait and balance of someone’s walk against a healthy person’s speed and posture. And the microphone can notice minute fluctuations in someone’s voice that may indicate Parkinson’s or another health problem:

Dr. Michael McConnell, a professor in cardiovascular medicine at Stanford Medicine who also directs Stanford’s cardiovascular health innovation program, said Apple’s new health efforts that include ResearchKit will be a game changer in cardiovascular technology. “We can use the power of something that they carry with them every day to help with measurements and surveys,” he said. “I think it is offering us a new way to do medical research. … I think we’ve amassed already what may be one of the world’s largest pieces of data on fitness… the impact on health could be profound.”
– ABC video: Inside Apple’s Top Secret Health and Fitness Lab for Apple Watch Development.

Services focused on tracking health will be able to use the Watch interface to display relevant, up-to-the-minute statistics in a way that’s more convenient than on a smartphone, or on a monitoring device’s screen. It will do this using the processing power of your iPhone, rather than a mobile chip onboard the watch itself, and updates will be sent to the watch wirelessly. DexCom Monitor will work this way. It will use the Apple Watch to show blood glucose levels for Type 1 diabetics by presenting an easy-to-read graph on the smartwatch’s display… Cohero Health is working on an Apple Watch app so asthmatics can better track their medical adherence and lung function… Malay Gandhi, managing director at Rock Health, says that giving people continuous feedback, prompting and reminding them at the right times, is key to inducing those sorts of lifestyle changes… The watch could even potentially help you make better decisions when you’re having a night on the town… Read more: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/apple-watch-apps/

Obstacles on Border.

When Apple Inc. started developing its smartwatch, executives envisioned a state-of-the-art health-monitoring device that could measure blood pressure, heart activity and stress levels, among other things, according to people familiar with the matter. But none of those technologies made it into the much-anticipated Apple Watch, due in April [2015]. Some didn’t work reliably. Others proved too complex. And still others could have prompted unwanted [FDA] regulatory oversight… Read more:http://www.wsj.com/articles/challenge-of-apple-watch-defining-its-purpose-1424133615

Apple initially experimented with sensors that measured skin conductivity to gauge stress levels, but struggled to get a consistent performance when they were tested on people with dry skin or hairy arms, according to the WSJ. The ability to passively monitor glucose levels without breaking skin — an achievement that could give unprecedented insight into someone’s diet — has also long been cited as a particularly difficult feat by medical and health tracking device makers. Another issue for Apple was the uncertainty over how such a souped-up health monitoring device would actually be regulated. In the Dec. 2013 meeting, the FDA said it wouldn’t need to regulate a glucose meter that monitored blood sugar to help a wearer better understand their nutrition. But it would have to step in if the meter was marketed to diabetics… Read more:http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/02/17/apple-watch-health-tracking/